A bid to give expression to my view of the breadth and depth of one of Cambridge's gems, the Cambridge Film Festival, and what goes on there (including not just the odd passing comment on films and events, but also material more in the nature of a short review (up to 500 words), which will then be posted in the reviews for that film on the Official web-site).

Maud's (Sally Hawkins') relationship with Everett (Ethan Hawke) and worth as a creative person may be celebrated, but the film nonetheless feels pedestrian, whereas, as Elisa, Hawkins not only has far more scope to develop the role, but also (as Alexandre Desplat's score) soars. pic.twitter.com/ulDBiSDBtI

'Joy (2015) is another Playbook where the Silver Linings
are fairly hidden' ~ Ramirez Jones

Of course, writer / director David O. Russell lets Robert De Niro steal scenes, and, because of Silver Linings Playbook (2012) (and American Hustle (2013) ?), can play on our expectations of the 'friendship in commerce' of Jennifer Lawrence (Joy) and Bradley Cooper (Neil)... pic.twitter.com/EXt8HWuwRj

Maybe David O. Russell is selling himself or his film short, or it was intended for a director's commentary, but 'the insights' that he dare offer to us in the DVD extra for Joy (2015) ('Joy, Strength and Perseverance')... ?

Saturday, 17 February 2018

I know that Black Panther (2018) is supposed to be so Marvellous (and I see that https://t.co/xFknMehWT9 hasn't got to it yet*), but I couldn't help being amazed at @everyfilmneil, choosing, on principle, to watch such action films...

Isn't Q2 almost logically antecedent to Q1 (or even - if it were actually a classy, interactive survey - a Q that shouldn't be asked of someone who really did agree with the suggestion that 'being sectioned has been the best approach for your mental-health needs') ?#MHAReviewhttps://t.co/nU1Vu5IxZV

Q1. Based on your experience, do you agree or disagree that being sectioned has been the best approach for your mental health needs ? Please explain your answer.1. Being 'sectioned' is, in itself, a piece of jargon that we do not need - it is worse than when the language was 'committed', or 'certified', and has no objective justification : unless Regulations determine whether, for example, the police can detain a person against his or her will, such a detention will be under some section of an Act of Parliament, but we don't call that 'being sectioned', but (usually) 'arrested'.2. Detention against one's will is often not an approach for that person's 'mental health needs', but, usually, to keep someone in an environment that is neither usefully stimulating, nor therapeutic, for the benefit of and away from others (e.g. family or neighbours), until that person 'is better', so I cannot agree that 'sectioning' was for my needs, or implies any approach (good or bad) to them - the existence, nowadays, of crisis resolution and home treatment, which are approaches, and the paucity of places on wards, mean that I would not have been sectioned now.3. It was a dehumanizing and degrading experience, and it licenses the use, on patients and regardless of whether they have capacity to consent, with powerful medications whose exact effect is guesswork to those who prescribe them, as is the incidence of very unpleasant side-effects (of which no warning was given) : they may quieten them, but so would psychological interaction, and without badly altering their brain chemistry. It is legalized experimentation with dangerous substances.Q2. What could have happened differently that could have prevented you from being sectioned ?1. As mentioned at Q1, the existence of crisis resolution and home treatment services, or the lack of ready availability of psychiatric places, which allowed people to be detained who could clamour for one now, and not be admitted.2. Psychiatric services for those who really do need and want them have, unfortunately, been deprived of such funding that the only benefit is that people can no longer be put under detention for so little reason.3. In my case, proper psychological engagement with me, as I was, rather than the police-led escalation of my mood, thoughts and fears, would have assisted.Q3. How would you describe the care you received while sectioned ? This could be either in hospital or a Community Treatment Order.1. I am not sure that it is correct that one is, as such, sectioned when on a CTO : certain sections and / or certain triggering events may cause a Responsible Clinician to put someone on a CTO, but my understanding is that one cannot say 'while sectioned' to mean on one.2. The care was not 'care', but containment. In comparison with even some other wards on the same site, it had a reasonable programme of activities, such as a cooking group, or a so-called 'breaking-out group' (going into the city under escort of 2-3 nursing staff). Other activities were more patronizing, such as being given time to make a piece of art, but then have to have someone supposedly analyse it / one through it, or the community meeting (which I avoided, after being at it once). Asking for an hour's ground leave and walking around the grounds was best.3. None of this was 'care'. One was indoctrinated with some medicalized account of one's self, and obliged to take medication (haloperidol) - this felt more like punishment for what one was not meant to think / have thought, with constipation, stiff and awkward arms and legs, painful neck-cramps. All depersonalizing, humiliating and taking away any status that one had in the name of psychiatry.Q4. In your experience, what are the most important things that can help people stay well following discharge, and reduce the need to be sectioned again in future ?1. The 'need to be sectioned' proved to be tied to finances - when funding for mental-health services became curtailed, it became less likely that anyone with my experiences (20+ yrs ago) would be sectioned.2. Nonetheless, the important less that being 'sectioned' teaches a former detainee is to behave in such a way that psychiatrists lose interest and discharge him or her. Then, despite a mind that has almost certainly been damaged in the way that the nonsense about 'chemical imbalance' claimed justified one's detention, take sufficient medication to control behaviour that attracts others' attention.3. For those who were desperate to be discharged (and did not just outright refuse to agree to the terms of Supervised Community Treatment, because then a so-called Community Treatment Order would be impossible to make), it will not be the CTO - no evidence of that whatever.4. The 'need to be sectioned' - there is no such need, because it is driven by societal and family pressure, but only as long as there is money for it.Q5. Do you feel you were treated with dignity and respect ?As a person who was twice detained against his will ? Absolutely not !Put on section 2 on c. 21 April 1996, the consultant did not even have the decency to tell me that she had taken me off the section - for years, until I saw my records, I thought that she had just let it expire.Detention under section is one of the most humiliating and degrading experiences of my life - that is the true answer to Q5, that, apart from the GP's stupid 'experiment' of continuing me without medication after an abrupt week-long withdrawal (as I had no tablets, and he decided not to prescribe), which saw a re-admission in January 1997, I had no intention, after that, of going back to hospital again for more dehumanizing and status-less time there.Q6. Where relevant, do you feel your carers (e.g. family or friends supporting you while you were sectioned) were treated with dignity and respect ?More so than I was. I was only taken off haloperidol, during the first admission, when my somewhat hard-hearted wife, obsessed with how her life had changed, pleaded for me.During the second admission (January 1997), she agreed to apply for me to be discharged from my section (section 3) - that, as I only established from the records, appeared to have been blocked within the period of 72h, but, again, there was zero transparency as to what had happened.Besides, my wife was not a carer - she was a prime cause of the behaviour that was diagnosed as supposed mental illness.Q7. What rights do you think a person sectioned under the Mental Health Act should have ?1. They should have the rights that the Act already gives them - not available, in my experience.

2. A curiously open-ended question, but, certainly :

(a) the right to a full assessment of capacity to consent to treatment in compliance with the Mental Capacity Act ;(b) based on being found to have capacity, the right to refuse treatment ;(c) the right, again with capacity or based on a relevant advance directive, to refuse ECT, and not for there to be a deemed lack of capacity or an 'emergency' need for ECT ;(d) not to be put on a CTO (and for all existing CTOs to be discharged), failing which explicit rights to an IHMA when a CTO falls to be considered and to be told of the right to refuse to agree the terms of a CTO and the consequences of so doing ;(e) the right to much better than the tokenistic 'reading of rights' that patients are given, by staff who do not believe that someone detained against his or her will has any rights ;(f) an easier way than displacing a nearest relative to have that a person of one's choice ;(g) right to a second opinion ;(h) better protection against ill-treatment than under s. 127 (has anyone ever been prosecuted successfully ?).Q8. What rights do you think a carer (e.g. family and friend) sectioned under the Mental Health Act should have ?They have too many rights as it is, e.g. to request a Mental Health Act assessment. Carers are often not the people whom those for whom they claim to care would choose, and the balance is too far in favour of abusers, who take away others' peace of mind, or even apparent sanity.Q9. If you could change one aspect of the Mental Health Act, what would you change ?It must be that, irrationally, it overrides people's capacity to refuse treatment (i.e. forced medication) for their alleged mental ill-health, but the very same people, with capacity to consent to treatment for a cancer or other such condition that will kill them (and a consultant in that field would be absolutely bound by their advance directive, if they lacked capacity, for such treatment, or to require them not to be resuscitated) - so much for parity of esteem !(A close-run thing with the unnecessary involvement of the police, which makes people confuse their psychiatric detention with the criminal-justice system - e.g. returning 'absconding' patients, or under s. 136.)Q10. Is there anything else you would like to tell us ?

The power of others to put people, either supposedly out of concern for them, or - as neighbours or as family members - by complaining about them or alleging being in fear of them, into a coercive environment that is unlikely to be therapeutic should be reduced / redressed in favour of those detained against their will.How much has really been understood since, or changed because of, Placed Amongst Strangers [www.mentalhealthalliance.org.uk/pre2007/documents/placedamongststrangers.pdf] ?

[...]

Q16. Do you know which section(s) of the Mental Health Act you were sectioned under ?

Yes :April 1996 - s. 2January 1997 - initially informal, then a s. 4 holding power was used* when - peaceably - I decided that I wanted to go back to the ward where I had been admitted overnight, and six staff used face-down restraint on me, I was taken back in, sedated, and put onto s. 3

End-notes :It looks as though that should have been s. 5, in fact :

My video on #restraint is being edited tomorrow, it’s great that my trust wants to hear my experience and use it in training #coproduction

(a) that the patient is suffering from mental disorder to such a degree that it is necessary for his health or safety or for the protection of others for him to be immediately restrained from leaving the hospital ;

-> for a period of six hours from the time when that fact is so recorded or until the earlier arrival at the place where the patient is detained of a practitioner [or clinician] having power to furnish a report under that subsection.#Restrain#Sedate#Discredit

Personal Independence Payment [X]Post Handling Site [Z][TownPostcode]21 December 2017Dear Sirs[Redacted : name – date of birth – National Insurance no.]
PIP application : Mandatory reconsiderationI write further to your letter dated 6 December, whose box was too small to give many and varied reasons why a mandatory reconsideration should make a different decision from that dated 18 November (which, probably over-elaborating*, I am attempting to set out in the separate document enclosed – this and it are watermarked with my name and NI number, in case any pages become detached).In addition, I was due to see Dr [X], my usual GP at [Z] Surgery, on Friday 15 December, and I write in the light of seeing him and his agreeing to write to you in support. (However, I believe (from having contacted the surgery’s reception), that he has still to complete and send his report.)I enclose, therefore, my detailed submissions (with reasons) why the decision should be reconsidered in my favour (awarding me at least the Standard rate for Daily Living), together with a copy of an annotated version of the letter dated 12 October 2016 that I received from [Z] Partnership (NHS) Foundation Trust (ZPFT). As mentioned further in those submissions, I discussed the letter with Dr [X] near the time, to decide with him whether it was worth my while to try to push to be granted a service more similar to what I had asked for. (An unannotated copy of the original of this letter was shown and given to the assessor, but it is not listed, and likewise others, on the Consultation report form PA4, on page 1 – ‘all evidence considered’.)Recent chronology :* Monday 6 November – appointment with Dr [X], who had not been asked for a report, and who read and then was supplied with copies of the PIP application form (in readiness)* Tuesday 7 November – the postponed medical assessment in [Z] (after one had been cancelled on the day)* Saturday 18 November – date of decision (which was slow to arrive [sc. because the DWP bulk-uses a private co., UK Mail, which then provides it to Royal Mail to be delivered with the ordinary stamped or franked post])* Monday 27 November – called DWP (on [no.]), and spoke to [Y], with whom an hour-long telephone conversation ensued (for a summary of the essential points of which, please see below)To begin with, I set out the following matters in this covering letter as being, in my opinion, of general application, and so – by copying this letter to my MP, Heidi Allen, by e-mail – I am asking for her to raise them with the relevant Minister(s) of HM government. I do so on behalf of all who have – on the phased ceasing of DLA (Disability Living Allowance), which is itself an inequity (although one from which I have benefited, by not having to go through this process before this date) – been obliged either to forgo such a payment, or apply ‘to transfer to’ PIP (Personal Independence Payment). There are also those who, unwittingly, freely choose to apply, but with inadequate information.On 27 November, I made the phone-call, as it seemed implausible that Dr [X] could have been asked to write and have written a report in the timescale given above, i.e. an assessment on Tuesday 7 November, and the decision already made and sent out on the second Saturday succeeding it (18 November). As I told [X], the DWP representative to whom I spoke, the decision had been skimmed through, but it did not appear to mention a report from Dr [X]. She confirmed that none had been asked for, and that – with a discretion whether to do so – Independent Assessment Services (though still not wholly effective in a name-change from Atos) – usually do not request one (or words to that effect – she may have said ‘normally’, or ‘ask for’).On my own behalf, and having had to seek to assist clients […], I knew that the application form for other welfare benefits preceding PIP (e.g. DLA, or even IB (Incapacity Benefit)) contained the same sort of boxes for name, address, telephone number, etc., of health and other professionals. However, there was the legitimate expectation, because of what the practice was, that medical reports would be obtained, by or on behalf of the DWP – i.e. as part of the process of (re)applying for the benefit.In other words, as an individual, the claimant did not previously have to arrange for this to happen – obviously, any existing medical evidence, in letters or reports, could be submitted, but he or she did not have to commission his or her own up-to-date report (and meet any fee for writing it ?). Such existing reports were anyway unlikely to address the specific day-to-day needs in the way that those application forms asked for (or that for PIP now does) : the objectiveness of the assessment is supposedly predicated on its descriptors and corresponding points (as against wordings to fit into under the criteria for DLA, mobility and care components), but assessors, in a rather facile way, pick on what is evident and undeniable to them. (For example, how I am described, at the top of page 10 of the form PA4, under ‘General appearance and Informal Observations’ – one is credited for some of what one says by what the assessor can observe or witness, but not for others.)The fact that this is even so is an inequity, both for those less confident of being able to persuade a reluctant, because busy, GP or specialist to write a report – as against a request by or for the purposes of the DWP, which carries official weight – and / or for those without the means to pay for one (de facto they are, after all, applying for welfare benefits).1. The DWP sends out a fact-sheet that (starting with returning the form) leads up to information about the medical assessment, and refers to the role of Atos. However, as I wish to point out to Ms Allen, as my MP (and for everyone’s benefit), it needs to be absolutely explicit : in this benefit application (unlike others that a claimant may have made, before PIP), the onus has now actually been put on the claimant to obtain – if it does not already exist, in current written form – any additional evidence or information from the professionals who support you that explains how your condition or disability affects your daily life. (Also enclosed, attached to this letter, is a copy of that fact-sheet, where I have marked the sections that I am quoting.)2. At some level, that may seem clear enough, but the following sentences (after skipping the next one) must be read as well : Please send the most recent evidence you have that shows how your ability to carry out the activities we ask about in the form are affected by your condition or disability. Only send in photocopies of things you already have available to you [my emphasis]. (On the reverse of the sheet (under ‘Evidence that will help us to assess your PIP claim’), it even refers to what will assist a claim (Reports about you from […], followed by a list of eight types of professional, including GPs, consultants (‘hospital doctors’), and physiotherapists.)

3. Arguably, when coupled with the following factors, it is not clear enough to anyone making an application that reports will not be asked for, but that they are likely to be needful (please see para. 4, below) :(a) The fact that the initial application for PIP takes place by telephone, and therefore the DWP could take responsibility – in that call – for being plain with claimants that Atos (as [Y] informed me on 27 November) use their discretion and, by and large, do not request reports (or even tell claimants that they have not requested them),(b) At odds with what I was told by [Y], the fact-sheet goes on to say (under ‘What Happens Next ?’), when the claim has been passed to the assessment providers (i.e. Atos), They may ask the professionals who support you for extra information if they need it, and(c) Somewhere, between the DWP and Atos, any fee that might have been paid to GPs or others to write reports that were previously requested directly has then probably been pushed in the direction of the claimants (although, by definition, they are applying for welfare benefits), as well as putting on them as patients, etc., the task of trying to get someone to write reports (unlike a GP, etc., having a formal request from, say, the DWP)4. If all of that is the case, and if it were also fair and right for it be so, it cannot be fair or right not to spell out to claimants, when they make the telephone application, that they have to commission (and pay for) the reports that may assist their claim, i.e. a reasoned account from a professional that explains how your condition or disability affects your daily life. Unless a claimant has had a needs-led assessment, or input from an occupational therapist, it is not likely that a report will happen to cover his or her ability to carry out the activities we ask about in the form (ten activities for Daily Living, plus two for Mobility).5. Unlike in my case (where I was being obliged to make a claim for PIP by a specified date, because DLA would otherwise just finish), someone who did not want to be rushed with an important application (as it is by definition intended to try to make their life better financially), could then exercise the decision to delay making it – to have the best chance possible with it, by giving him or her time to obtain a report (and, additionally, the funds for any payment for writing it). In such a case, that person should properly be told, at that stage, what position he or she is in, because, by delaying making the application until he or she knew that a report was going to be available (and what cost would be incurred), the chances of successfully claiming would be increased.

ConclusionI can therefore see no reason why that is not an important and mandatory element, in the early part of the call (before starting the application itself), when someone telephones to make an application for PIP (or in the information sent out). It should then be followed up with an absolutely clear written statement of the same (whether or not, in that same call, the potential claimant proceeds with completing the application process).In the enclosed submissions (which have taken me, on and off, since around 8 December (or before)), I turn to the particular matters raised by my own case – the PIP decision dated 18 November, and the Consultation report form (PA4), dated 7 November, on which it is based. As mentioned above, I also refer to the annotated letter dated 12 October 2016 from ZPFT (Z Partnership (NHS) Foundation Trust) (the original of which was sent in with my application for PIP, and referred to in the assessment, but not acknowledged on page 1 of the PA4), and one of the DWP fact-sheet (attached hereto).Please acknowledge safe receipt of this letter and its enclosures. I look forward to hearing from you.Yours faithfully[Claimant]cc Heidi Allen, MP (via heidi.allen.mp@parliament.uk only)* As shown by the appended e-mail exchange, I had been waiting to hear from [X] (at [Z] Council, and who met me to complete the PIP application, in her handwriting, but with my answers). When I did receive this e-mail, and then sent her what I was then working on here (and in the enclosure), I seemed to have no reply from her, so I have had to press on, without her assistance :Appended e-mail correspondenceRE: PIP decision Thu, 14 Dec 2017 9:37[Sender]To [Claimant]Apologies for the delay. Please send over your response and I will be happy to ‘edit’ if necessaryFrom: [Claimant] Sent: 10 December 2017 22:20To: [Recipient]Subject: PIP decision10 December 2017Dear [X]After you helped me with the PIP application form, and I then managed to avoid having to go to [Z] (and getting stressed in a place that I barely know - though, oddly, that is so narrowly defined in the descriptors for 'Making and following a journey'), I forgot about your covering letter, when you posted me the scanned form.It re-emerged, when I was looking for the copy PIP form earlier to-day. An appointment, in [Z], was cancelled on the day, when my friend [/ …] and I had already arrived. They let us rebook it for Tuesday 7 November, and they issued the decision really quickly - I had seen my GP on the day before the appointment, shown him the forms and the descriptors (as he had not been asked to write a report), and made him copies of them.When I got the decision (dated 18 November), I did at least receive 6pts (but still 2pts short), and I was quickly on the phone to them for an hour, berating them that, when they know that people want their medical evidence considered, they (or the assessors) do not even tell people whether the assessors used their discretion about whether to request it (apparently, they do not normally request it).Which means that the claimant is unaware that it will not be to hand at the time of the assessment. That is just wrong, when their decision claims 'This information is the best we have available...'. I said that I would complain to my MP, and that the DWP - commissioning the assessment services - cannot claim not to know what is in their standard letters to claimants. What do you think ?I am writing something to argue myself up the necessary 2pts. Would you be willing to take a look, to temper the enthusiasm of someone arguing his own case, when I have finished ?I am seeing the GP on Friday - they are giving him till 25 December to write in support.Best wishes for Christmas[Claimant]

Sal Paradise's (Sam Riley's) draw to Dean Moriarty (Garrett Hedlund) in On the Road (2012) makes no comparison : maybe not the extreme adventure of True Romance (1993) (in so many ways it's very other), but here's a real feel for travelling with a plan that doesn't amount to one. pic.twitter.com/ILYs5tBUa4

Some brief observations, in note form, on a performance by members of London Voices of Stockhausen’s Stimmung, which opened Epiphany Through Music (for Concert's at King's) in King’s College Chapel on Friday 9 October 2015 at 8.00 p.m.

These are some things, external to the work, of which one was reminded (in no particular order) :* R. D. Laing’s lovely little book Conversations with Children* György Kurtág’s Jelek, játékok és üzenetek [Signs, Games, and Messages]* The parlour-game that is familiar under the name Apostles, but may go by other names :

-> Most children’s (and sometimes adult!) party will not be complete without the famous game ‘Trip to Jerusalem’ : http://t.co/n9jTCWX62a

Now seeing this piece, in live performance, felt crucial, and so it was excellent to have an almost unimpeded view of everyone in London Voices (London Voices) with the exception of Ben Parry, because it helped tease these other observations out of the ninety minutes (by which time, performers looked no more comfortable* than the audience, who could not both easily and quietly shift on the chairs of the ante-chapel…), being the work’s following elements and how they intermeshed / interwove (also in no special order) :* Play / playfulness* Bird-notes* Fringe-effects * Whistling* Singspiel, with a link to* Cabaret-style delivery

If a copy of Samuel Beckettt's novel Watt had come to hand to quote from, one would preface 'the following important material' in the same way that Watt and / or he does what appears in the closing pages of the book, after its four chapters :

End-notes* As one could see, from a few grimaces, when the performers from London Voices rose to take rapturous applause.If you want to Tweet, Tweet away hereUnless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)